Con
loc · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Con is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. Recorded meaning: From Middle English connen, from Old English cunnan (“to know, know how”), from Proto-West Germanic *kunnan, from Proto-Germanic *kunnaną, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵneh₃- (whence know).
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 68Kas Coen(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 76Kas Coen
- CRCosta Rica1 in 50K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Con itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 325 (measured from records)
- 1 in 50K (inferred from the name graph)
≈30,000 named Coen, est.
Highest-authority source
Costa Rica
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Coen in US United States, GB United Kingdom, BE Belgium and 4 more.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- Middle Englishconnen(measured from records)
- Old Englishcunnan“to know“to know, know how”(measured from records)
- Proto-West Germanic*kunnan(measured from records)
- Proto-Germanic*kunnaną(measured from records)
- Proto-Indo-European*ǵneh₃-whence know(measured from records)
From Middle English connen, from Old English cunnan (“to know, know how”), from Proto-West Germanic *kunnan, from Proto-Germanic *kunnaną, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵneh₃- (whence know). Doublet of can.
Sources 4
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 국립국어원 외래어 표기 용례 자료 (NIKL loanword/foreign-name transcription examples)
- Wiktionary
- Dictionar Onomastic Rominesc
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Con counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | ≈30,000 est. | ≈1 in 46K | — | Coen | 8 |
| US United States | 4,400as Coen | 1 in 76K | 4.4K | Coen | 325 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈970 est. | ≈1 in 68K | 6 | Coen | 111 |
| BE Belgium | 835as Coen | 1 in 14K | 835 | Coen | 59 |
| IT Italy | ≈800 est. | ≈1 in 78K | 3 | Coen | 39 |
| IE Ireland | ≈410 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Coen | 68 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 41K | 13 | Coen | 23 |
| PL Poland | 117 | 1 in 327K | 60 | — | 1 |
| CR Costa Rica | 101 | 1 in 50K | 101 | — | 2 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names; dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Con is also recorded in 6 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Khmer, to be poor, to be miserable; to be at a loss for words (in an argument or debate). {Th, COn ‘poor, poverty- stricken.’)
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume I (ក-ភ)
In English, To study or examine carefully, especially in order to gain knowledge of; to learn, or learn by heart.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latin, abbreviation of Constantinopolis, Constantinople, ancient and medieval Istanbul.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Azerbaijani, A transliteration of the English male given name John
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, (dated) cunt, pussy (the female genitalia)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Chinese, contact lens (Classifier: 隻／只 c; 粒 c; 副 c)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- John Bunyanb. 1628GBnot in their usual nameEnglish Christian writer and preacher (1628-1688)
- John Adamsb. 1735USnot in their usual nameFounding Father, U.S. president from 1797 to 1801 (1735–1826)
- John Quincy Adamsb. 1767USnot in their usual namePresident of the United States from 1825 to 1829
- John Tylerb. 1790USnot in their usual namepresident of the United States from 1841 to 1845
- John Updikeb. 1932USnot in their usual nameAmerican novelist, poet (1932–2009)
- John McCainb. 1936USnot in their usual nameAmerican politician (1936–2018)
- Thomas J. Sargentb. 1943USnot in their usual nameAmerican economist (born 1943)
- John Grishamb. 1955USnot in their usual nameAmerican writer (born 1955)
- John Robertsb. 1955USnot in their usual nameChief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 2005
- John Cusackb. 1966USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor, producer, and screenwriter (born 1966)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 39 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 346 | #62,494 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 330 | #60,960 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 261 | #70,052 |
| CR Costa Rica | TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names | — | 101 | #1,467 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 60 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 60 | #43,579 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 57 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 57 | #45,772 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 1 | #160,480 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Con mean, and where does it come from?
- From Middle English connen, from Old English cunnan (“to know, know how”), from Proto-West Germanic *kunnan, from Proto-Germanic *kunnaną, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵneh₃- (whence know). Recorded by The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland and 국립국어원 외래어 표기 용례 자료 (NIKL loanword/foreign-name transcription examples) and 2 other sources.
- In which country does Con have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 30 thousand people named Coen in China, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Con most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Con is densest in Costa Rica — about 1 in 50 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Con?
- In Poland, the national register counted 117 people named Con in 2026, about 1 in 327 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Con?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/conThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Con”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.